Delhi's internet connections

India Internet World (IIW), the internet business and technology show, set itself an ambitious target for its fourth show in September this year. The event set out to be one of Asia's largest internet exhibitions and went a long way to achieving this goal, covering more than 23,000sqm at New Delhi's Pragati Maidan and featuring nine keynote speakers, six technology forums and 60 business sessions. All this attracted more than 600 delegates and 12,000 visitors. "India represents one of the largest markets of the future and is also one of the most prominent software development centres," IIW show director Mr Tarun Hukku says. "IIW looks to be the hub of internet-related business activity in Asia Pacific." IIW's partner country this year was the US, yet a strong contingent from Asia Pacific came in the form of South Korea's country pavilion, plus exhibitors from Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Visitors comprised senior management across the IT and internet sectors. Specific objectives of the event included bringing qualified buyers to the show to enable interaction with the exhibitors, as well as building partnerships through networking. Also on the agenda was cutting sales cycle time by providing opportunities to transact business with the buyers at the show. To improve on the previous show, IIW introduced a conference element. To facilitate this, IIW introduced the Qualified Buyers Program (QBP). "Market conditions were extremely tough and the most difficult part was bringing in the right kind of audience, so we made this work by launching the QBP," Mr Tarun Hukku adds. The venue, Pragati Maidan, was well-received by both organisers and exhibitors alike, as it was able to incorporate the exhibition, conferences, seminars and workshops. Its state-of-the-art, 24-hour high-2 Mbps speed connectivity proved to be essential in the staging of this show and also offered a fully equipped resource pool from where the media could function with access to all information and infrastructure they required. However, Mr Hukku feels the facilities at the venue had a lot of scope for improvement, although where facilities were lacking, they were provided by the India Trade Promotion Organisation and operated by Itspace.com. One other challenge was the low turnout compared with last year. The general economic slowdown was also mirrored at this show. Nevertheless, this has not hampered any of the organisers' future plans for the IIW. Plans are already under way for next year's event. Mr Hukku remains positive. "In the four years IIW has been running, IIW 2000 saw the highest response in terms of the number of visitors," he admits. "However, considering the feedback received from exhibitors in 2001, we believe the business generated is also high. And for next year's show, we hope to improve on the numbers of quality visitors and delegates." n